Language of Parts
Tier 1 · The normative floor
Baseline compliance
What the normative text of WCAG 2.2 requires, and nothing more. Only a failure of this tier is a WCAG failure.
The bare minimum
The human language of each passage or phrase can be programmatically determined. Exempt: proper names, technical terms, words of indeterminate language, and words or phrases that have become part of the surrounding language.
Normative text
Verbatim from WCAG 2.2, W3C Recommendation 12 December 2024. Underlined terms are defined below.
The human language of each passage or phrase in the content can be programmatically determined except for proper names, technical terms, words of indeterminate language, and words or phrases that have become part of the vernacular of the immediately surrounding text.
Known failures
These fail this criterion or a related one named in the text. Log them as WCAG failures.
- Unmarked passages in another language fail, as do language-switcher links written in their own languages without lang. W3C's Understanding document uses language links as its example.
Not required by the normative text
Common claims that this criterion does not support. Don't log these as WCAG failures.
- Marking up borrowed words that have become part of the surrounding language, such as "déjà vu" in English.
- Marking up the language of proper names.
Definitions used (3)
Glossary definitions are normative. Their notes are informative.
- human language
-
language that is spoken, written or signed (through visual or tactile means) to communicate with humans
Informative notes (1)
See also sign language.
- programmatically determined
-
determined by software from author-supplied data provided in a way that different user agents, including assistive technologies, can extract and present this information to users in different modalities
- text
-
sequence of characters that can be programmatically determined, where the sequence is expressing something in human language
Tier 2 · The gap
Usability & user impact
Where content can meet this criterion and still make things harder for people with disabilities. These are not failures of SC 3.1.2, so raise them as usability defects. Known failures, including failures of related criteria, are listed in Tier 1.
Proper names and technical terms are exempt, so a page full of untagged foreign names can still be mispronounced.
Tier 3 · The golden path
Recommended best practice
The pattern that meets the floor, closes the gap, and avoids audit disputes. A recommendation, not a requirement.
Add lang to language-switcher links (each written in its own language) and to quoted passages in another language.
W3C's Understanding document and techniques for SC 3.1.2 ↗ are informative: sufficient techniques show ways to pass, and documented failures show common ways to fail, but neither changes what the criterion requires.
How SC 3.1.2 maps to the WCAG 3 draft
From this site's reviewed map to the WCAG 3 editor's draft. It's an interpretation: W3C has not published a mapping.
Successor provisions
From WCAG 2.2, section 5.1: “The main content of WCAG 2.2 is normative and defines requirements that impact conformance claims. Introductory material, appendices, sections marked as "non-normative", diagrams, examples, and notes are informative (non-normative). Non-normative material provides advisory information to help interpret the guidelines but does not create requirements that impact a conformance claim.”